Where's my spudger? —

Moto X teardown reveals all the mid-range innards

Assembled and disassembled in the USA

Ever wonder what was inside the Moto X? Does it really house a custom-designed "X8 computing" chip? Is it just filled with tiny American flags? iFixit grabbed their usual bag of spudgers and screwdrivers and ripped apart the Moto X to find out.

The really unique part of the Moto X is the "X8 Mobile Computing System," which Motorola claims is composed of a Snapdragon S4 Pro, a natural language processor, and a contextual computing processor. It would be interesting to see if Moto went all out and branded the chip on the motherboard, but sadly, iFixit says the X8 is located under the orange-highlighted RAM chip, so we will never see it.

The other standout attribute is that the woven back on the AT&T version is actually woven–you can see right through it!

iFixit gives the Moto X a seven out of 10 for repairability, citing a liberal use of easy-to-remove pressure contacts and a single screw type. The negatives include a fused digitizer/display combo and a glued-on back panel. For the full blow-by-blow teardown, go check out the article.

Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron.amadeo@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo

Has anyone looked at the damage resistance of the fused glass/digitizer assembly vs the separate parts?

I know it's commonly listed as a negative for repairability, but if it doesn't break as easily because it's a larger, stronger part, then it would be less of a factor. At least for most materials, fusing a number of layers together leads to something substantially stronger than each layer alone.

I've certainly seen a number of damaged Nexus 4s (which have a fused frame/display/digitizer module at $120 or so to replace), but I've also seen them take some decent abuse without breaking.

Also, repairability is nice, but "a really nice display" is also nice. It would be easy to make something totally repairable, but it would also be giant, and probably not nearly as nice to use/look at.

Isn't the only "mid-range" innard the CPU, with everything else on par with competitors? Depending on if you count the screen as an innard.

Well, the amount of RAM is still high for a phone. However, it's midrange because you can buy last year's flagship for way less money and the two will have similar specs.

Again, the specs issue seems limited to the CPU and screen AFAICT. Even there, the cores are newer/faster and the screen is non-pentile. It just seems like a step back for the title to trumpet "all the mid-range innards" when the last couple of Ars reviews have been saying the opposite for all the non-CPU parts:

While there's less CPU power on tap here, the Adreno 320 GPU goes toe-to-toe with the version in the Snapdragon 600. This approach to processing power—a fast GPU combined with a "good enough" dual-core CPU—is the same one that Apple has taken with its A5 and A6 SoCs, and it keeps battery life relatively high while maintaining good graphics performance....As for the rest of the internals, the Moto X is as good as any flagship smartphone: 2GB of RAM and 16 or 32GB of (non-expandable) storage are standard, as is Bluetooth 4.0 and LTE connectivity. 802.11ac Wi-Fi support is an unexpected but welcome surprise; the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One both offer it, but otherwise we're still seeing 5GHz 802.11n as the best available option in many phones, tablets, and laptops. The Moto X offers one bi-directional wireless stream, giving it a maximum theoretical throughput of 433Mbps.

Isn't the only "mid-range" innard the CPU, with everything else on par with competitors? Depending on if you count the screen as an innard.

Well, the amount of RAM is still high for a phone. However, it's midrange because you can buy last year's flagship for way less money and the two will have similar specs.

Again, the specs issue seems limited to the CPU and screen AFAICT. Even there, the cores are newer/faster and the screen is non-pentile. It just seems like a step back for the title to trumpet "all the mid-range innards" when the last couple of Ars reviews have been saying the opposite for all the non-CPU parts:

Has anyone looked at the damage resistance of the fused glass/digitizer assembly vs the separate parts?

I know it's commonly listed as a negative for repairability, but if it doesn't break as easily because it's a larger, stronger part, then it would be less of a factor. At least for most materials, fusing a number of layers together leads to something substantially stronger than each layer alone.

I've certainly seen a number of damaged Nexus 4s (which have a fused frame/display/digitizer module at $120 or so to replace), but I've also seen them take some decent abuse without breaking.

Also, repairability is nice, but "a really nice display" is also nice. It would be easy to make something totally repairable, but it would also be giant, and probably not nearly as nice to use/look at.

Glad to see it's not just a fake weave, though. That's pretty cool!

The fused glass display is touch on lens. I wouldn't buy a phone without it because the touch screens actually work!

How does the location of the assembly in the USA impact the finished product?

What purpose does the "woven back" serve (presumably insulation) and why is it cool?

Did the move to USA production drive specification of "mid-range innards"?

Not to be too critical about the writing, but as an American I am pretty enthusiastic about the trend to assemble electronic products in the US and would like to know more about the finished products.

Having a start at some answers:

Assembly is supposedly more automated in the texas plant compared to china, this is primarily to handle the custom covers. Factory is otherwise supposed to be very close to the one in china(see here about a third way down)

Woven back is usually for mechanical strength, or reduced weight at the same strength. ie surfboards, body armor etc. Guess it has novelty too. Did anyone confirm what material? Kevlar does not conduct well and thus might be favored over carbon fibre to help reduce signal loss.

The BOM of an up market phone is usually around $200 of which only around $10-20 is assembly, the rest is pretty much from Asia. Covering the phone in the Stars and Stripes is pushing it a bit, i would be more comfortable with some thing like "made lovingly just for you by caring robots"

The end price of the phone being slightly too high looks more to do with Motorola's current low market share they would have difficulty getting discounts on essential parts and not able to offer suppliers reasonable min quantities for custom parts. Problem looks very similar to HTC, which is somehow losing money on the One due to the camera being unique, suppliers just won't give them a good deal anymore.

Add to that the underwhelming battery life and you've covered just about everything that matters.Even that by itself is not bad. Until you find out the same $$$ can get you something truly high-end.

If by "underwhelming" you mean "not actually 24 hours," sure. It's still longer than competitors, just not 2x like one might've hoped. I'm still waiting for Anandtech to post a more rigorous comparison.

Can tech writers stop going on about how it is "midrange" as though this was a cardinal sin?

I thought the cardinal sin was more that it's a mid-range phone with a high-end price point.

I'm still not sure why it is "mid-range". The GPU beats any phone currently out there. The CPU beats any phone with the same case size or smaller. The battery life is better than anything with the same CPU/GPU specs that isn't a phablet with the exception of the RAZR MAXX.

Sure the screen isn't 1080p like HTC1 and SGS4, but the difference between 720p and 1080p on a 4.7" screen is so small that I actually don't want 1080p on a 4.7" screen until battery life and GPU are so advanced we don't really care about doubling the GPU performance or halving its power consumption, never mind the better efficiency of the screen.

Not only that, MotoX has the 'always listening' mode which doesn't kill your battery, the accel/gyro wakeup tweaks which also don't kill your battery and the non-battery-draining 'pulsing' notifications. Sure you can gets apps for other phones, but then your battery life suffers. All those battery comparisons with other phones are when you *aren't* using these features which you are using all the time on the MotoX. If you want to claim that the other phones can also do these things, you need to account for the reduced battery life they will get.

It fits into your hand nicely, and gives a great user experience. Close-to-stock android with a better camera app and a few tweaks for the new features they added.

Can tech writers stop going on about how it is "midrange" as though this was a cardinal sin?

mid range isn't a sin at all. I have opted to get mid range phones a good deal of the time. However, the sin is the price point. That price on contract is highway robbery. On my network, midrange phones or even 2012 model phones go for less than $100. Most being free on contract.

Useful! I've actually been looking for a more-detailed comparison. Does their test control for screen brightness? Annoyingly, their Moto X review doesn't include a display test like the other two.

Ars says "In continuous usage with the phone set to 50 percent brightness and the auto-brightness sensor turned off, the phone played this relaxing video of a waterfall for about nine hours and 30 minutes, which compares favorably to the seven hours we got from the Google Play edition of the HTC One and the seven hours and 32 minutes we got from the Nexus 4 running Android 4.3."

The Verge says "It lasted for 7 hours, 14 minutes on the Verge Battery Test, which loads popular websites and high-res images with brightness at 65 percent; that’s a very good score, far better than the HTC One and the GS4, but well below class leaders like the Maxx or the Galaxy Note II."

Geek says "In our “heavy usage” cases, which include playing GPU intensive games for over an hour, connected to Google Glass via Bluetooth tether, checking the phone every 30 seconds, and generally using the phone with the screen brightness set to 100%, the phone averaged 15 hours of battery life. To compare, that same test drained the HTC One in 7.5 hours."

PC Mag says "We got 14 hours, 15 minutes of CDMA talk time, which is definitely a great showing for the 2200mAh battery. That beat our result on the CDMA HTC One, which marked 11 hours, 25 minutes on a larger 2300mAh battery. The Moto X's 8 hours, 21 minutes of video streaming time over Wi-Fi also beat the HTC One's 5 hours, 48 minutes."

The best description I can find of GSMArena's battery tests is one from 2012, which says their tests run at 50% brightness. Which makes the results discrepancy compared to other sites really frickin' weird... I'm still gonna wait for Anandtech.

Quote:

Not unexpected, considering the older chipset, but really annoying for the same asking price.

What older chipset? I hope you don't mean the S4 Pro label. Again from Ars's review:

Quote:

Moving on to that Snapdragon SoC, we don't have much to report that we didn't already cover in our Moto X performance preview. The chip is branded as an S4 Pro, a label that is becoming more ambiguous as it's applied to more SoCs (see also: the 2013 Nexus 7). The easiest way to explain the chip in the Moto X is to say that it's a Snapdragon 600 with two Krait 300-based CPU cores instead of four.

The PCB looks more like a feature phone than a smart phone, so where do they get the nerve to charge high prices for this?

I hope one day iFixit stops complaining about non-repairable Retina class display packaged as fused panels, this is the current technology and is actually more robust and less prone to failure than the thick glass displays they love selling replacement part for. Dudes, time marches on.

You will notice that besides The Verge, everyone else is testing just a specific function. The Verge looks at more things, but basically just keeps on punding the phone until the battery runs out. I like gsmarena's approach better, because they mix usage and idle time in their tests. After all, idle time is just as important, because that's waht phones do, over half the time.But yes, Anandtech is really what I'm waiting for, too.

You will notice that besides The Verge, everyone else is testing just a specific function. The Verge looks at more things, but basically just keeps on punding the phone until the battery runs out. I like gsmarena's approach better, because they mix usage and idle time in their tests. After all, idle time is just as important, because that's waht phones do, over half the time.But yes, Anandtech is really what I'm waiting for, too.

The thing is, only GSMArena rates the One higher for web and video life, whereas other reviewers get extra hours on the Moto. It's harder to find idle testing, but another Geek article did run an hour of idle, where the Moto still does better:http://www.geek.com/android/what-to-exp ... e-1567151/

Plus, you'd think idle would be the easiest state to optimize. All this makes me skeptical of GSMArena's findings.

The best description I can find of GSMArena's battery tests is one from 2012, which says their tests run at 50% brightness. Which makes the results discrepancy compared to other sites really frickin' weird... I'm still gonna wait for Anandtech.

Indeed... without knowing the actual brightness of the display at 50% for each device it really is a flawed way to test. That is one of the nice features of AT's reviews, a calibrated relative brightness setting (usually 200nits) to keep things apples to apples.

Plus, you'd think idle would be the easiest state to optimize. All this makes me skeptical of GSMArena's findings.

If you read that carefully, you'd notice how they say disabling Active Notifications and Touchless Control turns that 39h into 44h.And no, idle is not that easy to optimize for, because you don't want your device to go into power saving mode while the user is still looking at the screen. Turning stuff off is easy. Turning it off while maintaining the user experience, not so much.

If you read that carefully, you'd notice how they say disabling Active Notifications and Touchless Control turns that 39h into 44h.

Still suspiciously shitty.

Quote:

And no, idle is not that easy to optimize for, because you don't want your device to go into power saving mode while the user is still looking at the screen. Turning stuff off is easy. Turning it off while maintaining the user experience, not so much.

Uh, I took "idle" to mean the screen being off. If the screen's on, it always constitutes the great majority of power usage (doubly so if nothing else is active), and the phone won't last half a day, let alone 40 hours. Furthermore, if you're talking about screen-on idle, the Geek review says that's exactly what the Moto does better:

Geek wrote:

If you take a look at the battery charts in the screenshots taken during our tests, there’s a huge gap between the screen-on state and the awake state. In fact, if you compare this same bar to a phone made by another company that has performed the exact same tasks, these charts will appear flipped. Motorola’s processor doesn’t spin up high enough to be considered “active” for tasks like delivering notifications or even refreshing a social network app. The processor runs very cool, and when you combine that with a display that consumes significantly less power than the 1080p guzzlers out there it’s not hard to see how the Moto X does so well.

EDIT: Anandtech's review is out! They find battery life to be average, and a notch lower on talk time (oddly contradicting two other reviewers in a test that doesn't use the screen). Hmm. Even if the innards are similar, I'm surprised the screen made no real difference. As I understood, higher DPI requires stronger backlighting, but I'm not sure how that translates to AMOLED.

EDIT: Anandtech's review is out! They find battery life to be average, and a notch lower on talk time (oddly contradicting two other reviewers in a test that doesn't use the screen). Hmm. Even if the innards are similar, I'm surprised the screen made no real difference. As I understood, higher DPI requires stronger backlighting, but I'm not sure how that translates to AMOLED.

I didn't know higher DPI needs stronger backlinghting (I'm going to look it up, I don't know if that's true), but in the case of OLED that's easy: there is no backlight, each pixel makes its own light. That's why balcks are so deep and that's why OLED is more efficient than LCD when turned off and it's more wasteful when it's all lit up. It's also how one can manipulate testing video: choose a darker of brighter movie and you can favor one screen type or the other.

All in all, Anand seems to agree with gsmarena: half the cores, half the resolution, worse batery life overall, on par battery life in a few scenarios.